Disclaimer I own very little, especially not CSI NY.

Notes Chapter 13: THANK YOU VERY MUCH for all previous reviews! I hope you like this chapter. Please continue reviewing - I love to know what you think - all very welcome, and replied to if logged. I'm sorry this is a bit late again.

Thank you to sarramaks for reading and suggestions.

Dedicated to Shining Zephyr with thanks.

Lost Letters: Chapter 13

Early evening. The streets swelled and the sidewalks heaved and rose with the exodus from the end of the working day. Buildings tided out their humanity back into the perspiring air; then rested and readied themselves for the morning when they would pull them back in again. The never-ending cycle of the city.

People moved slowly and stupidly. They complained and wrangled with each other to get back to their air-conditioned comforts as swiftly as possible; they longed to stop being 'us' and become 'me' for a few precious hours; they snatched water from the dozens of vendors offering limpid oases, careless of the ice cubes that bounced out of the containers as bottles were dragged free and limp bills from damp hands were exchanged. Ice cubes that gleamed and glossed into silky pools of water, and shimmered away into the sidewalks.

At each intersection, individuals broke away into stores and apartment blocks, but the accumulation continued undiminished. People moved, and a little undercurrent moved amongst them. It swirled past arms and knocked purses off shoulders then was gone again; it bumped briefcases into knees and disappeared before the indignant 'Hey!' had left lips. But no one saw anyone.

Rich swept onwards and stopped at a news kiosk. The early evening editions were baled on the sidewalk and he peeled one off the top stack, and handed money over: coins that had warmed in his palms and left them stinking of metal and the residues of hundreds of New Yorkers whose hands had passed over the dimes and quarters; hands that had rubbed them, patinaed them, grasped and released them. Money rattled through his fingers too easily, but this was a necessary outlay.

The vendor dropped the coins into the bulging wallet around his middle, and tossed change over wordlessly, already taking money from the next customer, transaction over. He stepped away from the stand, already forgotten, as more customers grabbed papers off the pile.

Pressed between the side of the kiosk and a phone-box occupied by a gesticulating man who was attracting enough attention from passers by to detract it from him, he shook open his paper. The faintly vinegar smell of newsprint rose from the pages and it smeared onto his fingertips as he flipped through. It didn't take long to find what he was looking for; and even less time to skim through the article whose story he had created. The photograph the NYPD had released of the burned-out car caused a grin to twist onto his lips, but as he read more closely, the grin became a rictus. He read the article again as the noise of the streets faded out. His evening and his outlook altered very suddenly.

Rich folded the newspaper into a thin wedge and rammed it into his back pocket. Not only was the man he had run down still alive and a potential witness, but so too was the woman who had looked right into his eyes; risen from the certain death he thought he had left her to. Not certain enough. Along with the other man and woman who had been at the scene, it meant there were four pairs of eyes that should never have seen him, and four voices that could speak and identify him. It added unpleasantly to what he already knew; that the whole of the NYPD was now gunning for him; and it would be very little time before TJ was also searching for him, whoever he became, demanding to know why there were several crucial details he had not been told. Death sidled up to him and stayed at his back as he slipped into the crowd. But he took it with him as he took the names, identities and information he had read in the newspaper, and he remembered something he had said to Jake. Blood on his hands. Rich was not long for the city streets - his next identity was already forming - but there were things that had to be finished before his next transformation. Blood on his hands. There would be more before long; that he was certain of.

………………………………...

11th August

… I'm tired and it's too hot. Even at night the sun doesn't seem to go away. Joe doesn't have any problem sleeping, and once he's asleep, there's no waking him. Don't think I haven't tried in the early hours when I'm lying wide awake. Last night of course, I was worrying about things. There are just too many things happening at the moment. I know that Joe is going to see TJ tomorrow, and that it's about something pretty important. That makes me nervous. The very first time I met TJ I just had a feeling that he was someone we really shouldn't have gotten to know. It's too late now though of course, we're in for the ride, whatever happens…

………………………………...

"Lindsay! How's Danny?" Angell hailed the brown-haired detective as she crossed the parking lot. Looking more closely at her in the early evening light, she noted the wear and exhaustion in Lindsay's face, and asked gently, "No change?"

Lindsay's turned down mouth and creased forehead answered before her words, "He's not going to be waking up any time soon."

"You've come from the hospital?" They fell into step.

"Yeah. His parents are there until I can get back. We're kind of taking it in shifts…" She gave a half-smile, "Flack's headed there at some point. He called me earlier, so he's probably there now."

"He told me. And that he was going to try and persuade Mac to go home for a few hours."

Lindsay nodded, "Flack's a good friend. To all of us."

They walked silently the rest of the way to the building; Angell's light stride taking her ahead, whilst Lindsay's footsteps began to lag.

Angell waited for her at the door, and her concern grew as Lindsay almost stumbled up the step. She caught her elbow before she could lose her balance, and tried to make light of it, "I'm guessing you didn't get much sleep last night?"

Lindsay leaned heavily on the door for a moment, eyes turned down, "Not much. But it doesn't matter." She pushed onwards into the entrance hall.

Angell sighed inwardly. Guessing that Lindsay was pulled from all sides at the moment; wanting to be at Danny's side; wanting to do her job and find out all they could from Zee; and, as she herself was, wanting everything to be back as it had been two days ago. But it wasn't. The last two days had happened, and they had to deal with the events of them. And they needed to take care of themselves to do so. Lindsay and Mac, she more than suspected, were not doing that.

She plunged into her next sentence, "Lindsay, you need to get some sleep you know? You'll be no good to Danny, the case, or to anyone else if you don't. I'm telling you that as a concerned colleague."

Lindsay stopped. For a moment her back was to Angell, who bit her lip and wondered if she had stepped over Lindsay's carefully drawn lines.

Then she swung round to face her, and there was a quiet, stubborn sadness in her face, "I appreciate your concern, Detective Angell. But… I'm fine. I'm fine because I have to be. I can sleep at the hospital and I'll maybe get a few hours later tonight at home. Really." She gave her a small smile, "I'm in need of a strong cup of coffee though right now. Especially if Zee's in the same frame of mind as yesterday." With that she strode on down the corridor.

Angell followed close behind, knowing that the conversation had been very clearly ended by Lindsay with the message: please leave me alone.

It didn't take much to recognise that Lindsay was stuck together at the moment only by determination and no other choice, and that if she pushed her any harder, she would crumble. That would do no one any good, so for now, she held what she thought inside her head, and determined to talk to Don as soon as she could.

She reached their destination just behind Lindsay. A small room, overfilled with a cup-ring stained table and three chairs, waited for them. The chairs had started out upholstered in smart, creamy cotton, but were now beige and shabby with arms that were flecked with fingerprints and shone greasily at the ends, where a hundred palms and fingers had clutched and rubbed them. Despite the muggy evening heat that still hugged the city, the turquoise walls and green carpet held no warmth, and Angell shuddered slightly and felt her bare arms goose-pimple. The room also possessed a lingering odour, probably absorbed into the walls Angell decided, of sour milk and coffee. Suddenly any thirst for a drink had passed.

She lowered herself into one of the chairs, touching as little as possible of the fabric. It was one of the hazards of being a detective - furniture that did not even come close to the same hygiene and cleanliness requirements that she had herself. During her years in the NYPD she had sat on many a chair and sofa that made her squirm, and bolt for a quick change as soon as possible. This chair at least was dry. She shuddered again at another vivid memory. Lindsay had perched herself on the very edge of the seat and was sitting with her back curved and her elbows resting on her pressed together knees, fingers laced round them.

They had only a few moments to wait before the door opened and Zee entered, paper cup of coffee in his hand, dressed in fresh clothes and with hair that now fluffed and gleamed. His face shone clean and lighter and the change in his appearance and demeanour was very apparent. There was light in his eyes, and the grey and grime that had been trapped in the grains of his skin was gone. His shoulders were not quite so defensively hunched and his hands were relaxed at his sides, rather than crossed over his chest. Lindsay caught Angell's eye briefly, and both their eyebrows raised. They shared the same hope.

………………………………...

Danny's mother watched her son as she had watched so many times before in his childhood. All the times when he, oblivious in sleep, had lain sprawled across his bed, sheets and pillows askew and she had stood in the doorway and just watched. Always smiling, even after a day when he had charged yelling along the sidewalks, or had dodged a yellow cab for the hundredth time in one afternoon, so it felt like. She had always smiled when she watched him sleep, and had picked up his glasses from the floor amongst the detritus in his room of baseball gloves, bats, and inside out clothes and stood for a few quiet moments with them in her hand. And now she sat beside him, his glasses in her hand again; watching him lying under un-crumpled sheets, and pillows that aligned with mathematical precision against the head of the bed. But this time she could not smile.

………………………………...

Mrs Adams was not worried. Not yet anyway. But she could be worried soon. It had been almost two days since she had caught sight of Rita, and there was a troubled feeling inside her, making its presence increasingly felt. Joshua had sprung up the steps at his usual time for greeting their young neighbour that morning, but had returned minutes later highly disgruntled and empty-mouthed and made his own disappearance into the nooks and crannies of only he knew where.

The day had stretched on. Another day of besieging heat when even the secure shade of her basement courtyard had been compromised and the air had pressed scorching hands onto her skin, and crushed her lungs so she gasped and fought for breath in the oven temperature. The air-conditioning in her apartment was now broken, and knowing that Rita's had still not been fixed, there was nowhere left to go. So she sat in the furthest, darkest corner of her yard, her back against the frying bricks and was reminded that too many summers had passed for her; so many she had almost lost track of their number.

Her pipe knocked against her hip as she shifted in her deckchair to find a comfortable position, and with slow fingers, she pulled it out. There was no comfort to be had: reaching for her tobacco, she remembered with a sigh that she had run out, and it was a long, hot walk to the nearest store.

But Rita; no sight of her since the morning she had flown out to post some more of her letters, and no sound from her apartment since the previous evening when she had heard the front door slam twice. The second time had been as Mrs Adams was heaving herself into bed at a late hour - the heat was disturbing her sleep more than usual. Too many things to think about.

She looked up quickly, the burglary still a distressing memory, as something scuffled on the steps above her. But she felt her heart pound in relief when the familiar shape of Joshua emerged from a patch of shade, and stood up to address him in mock-severity.

"Well now, Joshua-boy. And where have you been hiding your furry self? Given up on me had you? Or out looking for your Rita-girl, is that it?"

He blinked slowly at her from his position on the top step, then with a growl, he curled himself into a comma and closed his eyes.

Mrs Adams curled her lip, and shook her pipe at him, "You'll get yourself trodden on if you stay there. Not all folks are as considerate as Rita in stepping over your idle form. So don't you come bewailing your woes to me if someone does walk on your paws!"

He flicked his tail at her in an unmistakeable gesture. She swore sometimes that he mixed with the wrong crowds along the streets of Harlem and it rubbed off on his fur and attitude. But he was too old to change now. As was she.

"Suit yourself. Your tea'll be ready in a few hours. Don't be late, or I'll put it out for the calico on the second floor…"

Another profane flick, which made her chortle as she made her way down the steps back to her deckchair.

She had only just settled herself again when more footsteps caused her to open her eyes, and catch sight of another resident with a fondness for Joshua hurrying down the steps.

"Off to work again, Riaz?" She called, a little more jauntily, knowing he would stop for a few moments chat before his shift. He did not disappoint her, and leaned down with a smile across his face.

"As ever, Mrs A. No rest, as they say. How you doing this evening?"

"Not so bad, not so bad. You haven't seen a sight of young Rita have you?"

He shook his dark waves of hair, "I have not, but then I've been asleep most of the day. Got me a double shift. I'll catch you later though."

With a wave and a grin, he was gone.

Mrs Adams smiled after him, and then shouted up to Joshua, "Lucky for you Riaz is a caring sort of a person huh, Joshua? Lucky for you, you got a nurse as another neighbour who wouldn't crunch your tail under his feet. What do you say to that?"

His tail flicked once more, and settled back onto the heat dusted step. The evening drew on.

………………………………...

"You look good, Zee." Lindsay offered first, and truthfully, "You've got some new clothes there, they look real smart on you. You like them?"

Zee sat down and took a sip of his drink, watching them over the rim of his cup, "Yeah. They're good. So, you two again, huh? You talked to me last night. You got more questions for me?"

"A few more." Lindsay answered. She knew she had to speak. Too much silence and the fears that were gathering like a murder of crows in her mind would overpower her, "You did good last night, Zee, remembering what you did. But we need you to remember a little more, okay? A bit more about what happened yesterday. Do you think you can do that?"

She was straining forwards in her seat, hoping the plea in her eyes would reach him.

There was more silence.

Please remember, please…

Lindsay felt her fingers gouging into the padding of the chair, widening a hole her fingernail had found. Zee set the cup down on the table. Coffee dribbled over the edge of it and crept round the base.

More stains on the table, Lindsay thought. We should have brought some napkins…

Angell spoke, "Whilst you're remembering, Zee, I'm just going to tell you before you ask: Stella's still in the hospital and she's being looked after. She's alive. Is that okay?"

The edge of the chair, Lindsay realised, was only just underneath her. Angell too was leaning forward precariously. The silence continued. Zee ran his finger around the edge of the cup, staring into it. Then he looked up, and his eyes met theirs. He looked from one to the other.

"Okay."

Both women exhaled, then Lindsay spoke, "Good. Okay, now, you think you can remember back to yesterday? What did you see outside? What happened before you saved Stella? Try and remember and tell us what happened."

More coffee slopped over the edge of the cup as Zee swirled it. Then he set it down. His finger ran round the cup one more time.

"I remember. I'll tell you."

………………………………...

There was nothing else he could say to Mac. Flack had used all the arguments that he knew as soon as he opened his mouth would not work; the 'go home and get some rest' arguments; the 'you're not doing Stella or anyone any good by neglecting yourself' arguments; the 'I'll stay with her while you go home and sleep for a few hours' arguments. Mac had simply stared at him with the granite sherds that had become his eyes and refused with one word. Not even bothering to use any counter arguments; because he knew that Flack knew them as well as he did. And Flack knew that his mind was made up. End of.

As he sat in the other chair in the room, Flack decided that it was working with Stella for so long that had increased Mac's obstinacy. Once he had decided something, she was the only person able to persuade him otherwise. But she was still unconscious, and was the very reason Mac was refusing to make acquaintance with the interior of his apartment, until she could be persuaded to be otherwise. If she could be.

Sitting across from him, at Stella's other side with his fingers still brushing hers, he saw Mac's eyes were closed and his lips were slightly parted; dozing. Flack sighed heavily and ran his hand through his hair, before looking down at Stella and wishing that he did not have to see her lying like this, so unlike herself.

"Come on, Stell." He murmured, "I said this to Danny, and I'm saying it to you now. Come back to us, please. All you have to do is open your eyes…"

Longest chapter so far! Please let me know what you think; if the different scenes worked or not, or if there was enough about the case and characters. All reviews very welcome and replied to. Thank you, Lily x